Tentatively . . .

I realize that everything could still go very, very wrong, and that we have yet to find a buyer for our house, but for some reason we had a tentative search in an area where we looked at houses before moving here. We viewed some a couple of weeks ago, around the Ross-on-Wye area, and thought we had found a house that we could really love, although it meant a lot of compromises - BIG compromises - both indoors and out. Then we did a bit more searching, and I think it was our Middle Daughter who found it for us, but we have found our dream house AND garden and it is very close to where we found a lovely-but-not-for-us house before we moved here. Strange. We have viewed it twice now and from the moment we first saw the initial photo of it, we had a "feeling". I won't say any more than that, but amazingly, although we could be a year or more in selling here, our offer has been accepted and confirmed in writing. The vendors had certain boxes which had to be ticked by potential buyers and we fitted the bill . . .

I won't mention it again, or by name, or even by area (as I am so superstitious), but if you were to see this house you would know just how perfect it is for us. Now we just need to be sent a buyer . . .

Sadly, it's not in the West Country which was calling me so strongly. I have had to draw a line under that idea now, but it is an area we have always liked and with a lot to interest us on an historical level which, I am sure, you know is very important to us. Watch this space . . .

Growing up

Today I think we may have found it, that elusive place, the dream home. But of course, it comes with two big drawbacks, possibly too big to ignore.

We were shown around the house, and we love its quirkiness, the beams, the little corners which were niches in rooms above the huge inglenook fireplace. We loved the formal side (added later) and the warm grey stone. We loved the roses growing up the walls, and the nods at its history and past owners. The garden was what I have had in my mind's eye for many years. We wandered past fading roses, some setting huge hips. The owner named them all, dozens of them. Some I had never heard of, they were so rare. Butterflies danced ahead of us as we walked through the orchard. The owner, knowing a kindred spirit when she met one, showed me every inch of the garden. My jaw dropped open when I saw the size of the fruit cage. We brushed past countless more nodding roses, tangles of clematis, a view of distant dreaming hills through a gap in a wall.

But we must be sensible. It is too far out really, for us who have been saying we want to have a social life again and be closer to friends. To be closer to jobs and nights out whilst G and D are still at home with us. And, it would be cheek by jowl with the previous owners, and we are used to total privacy . . .